


Not so much Falling, as Saunter Vaguely Downwards

by Michaelangelo



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angel Crowley (Good Omens), Crawley, Demon Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Trauma, Wing Grooming, Wingfic, Wings, and we follow that terrible journey, he goes from one to the other, its going to get increasingly dark, theres a lot of suffering
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:20:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22087051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Michaelangelo/pseuds/Michaelangelo
Summary: Crowleys fall is more like a series of unfortunate events, and moral situations were there is no correct answer. He does his best to not fall, but he really can't help it. The only real problem is, falling hurts, and falling slowly? well that hurts like hell
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	1. 1

_There was a firm but uncertain knock at the door, that sounded through the empty bookstore. Aziraphale, who had been locked comfortably away in his backroom for the last few days, considered ignoring it, until a slightly more firm and distinctly less certain knock followed it and he was pulled from his strange nest of paper._

_He opened the door to a cold looking twenty-something, who reached into their jacket and handed him an unmarked yellow envelope. They didn’t say anything to him, and before he had a chance to ask any questions, they had walked away._

_Aziraphale watched them for a moment before he closed the door and slipped back into the store, taking the letter with him._

_The envelope was the sort with bubble wrap built into the sides (which he had taken credit for creating back when that mattered), but it felt otherwise empty in the angels hands. When he gave it a small shake, there was no sound, and when he held up it, it had no weight beyond what it should have._

_He tore it open, and peered inside, before dropping it like the cursed thing it was. It hit the ground at the same time his back hit the wall and he scrambled across the room, his body dragging across the bookshelves as he moved for the phone._

~~~

“Crawley? You smell different. Oh goodness, what happened to your wings!” He asked the other angel, as they took form beside him. Their normally beautiful wings looked filthy, the tips blackened as if they were covered in ash, the rest browned with a sort of grime layer.

“They’re just dirty from The Garden. What happened to your sword?” He replied, deflecting the question’s undertones of concern and pushing the conversation past it.

“I gave it away.”

“You what?”

“I gave it away!”

They talked for a short while, the back and forth seeming as easy to them as every other part of their lives, before the concern tapped back into Aziraphale’s voice.

“Why are you sweating?”

“I’m just so hot all of a sudden. Are you not hot? I’m burning up.”

“It’s about to rain Crawley, I’m far closer to cold then I am to hot. When did it start?”

“Back in the garden, with Eve. It feels like I’ve got a fever. Could she have given me something?”

“Don't be silly, you’re an Angel. You can’t get sick.” Aziraphale answered, before placing the back of his hand on Crawley’s forehead.

“Oh. Maybe you can. Are you alright?”

“I’m always alright, I’m an angel after all.” Crawley replied, lightly but affectionatly mocking Aziraphales tone.

“Then why are you so warm?” He asked, touching the sides of the others cheeks and feeling the hot skin under his hands.

“Maybe~” Crawley cut himself off with a low and pained growl, that dropped him forward into Aziraphales arms.

“Crawley!”

Aziraphale held the other angel as the wave of pain rocked through him, letting their hands grab at his shoulders and their wings wrap defensively around them both.

“What’s happening, Crawley?” The angel asked, fear and confusion thick in his voice. 

He looked to the sky for answers and was met with the first few drops of rain, that turned to steam on the burning angels skin. He wrapped his own wings over Crawley’s and sheltered him from the water that seemed to boil as it touched him,

“I don’t~ ngh~ I don’t know.”

“How can I help you?”

“The garden~ ah! The water~ It burns~” 

He didn't need to finish before Aziraphale had lifted him, his slender frame suddenly feeling too frail in his arms as he walked to the edge of the wall. He looked down at the forests below and stepped off, falling for a moment before opening his wings and gliding. He landed in the water that felt crushingly cold against his legs, and helped Crawley onto his feet.

They walked together into the depths, and Crawley flinched as his wings hit the water. He looked behind himself and could see the filth bleeding a dark colour into the water and dirtying the perfect lake. 

Aziraphale’s hands wrapped around Crawleys waist as he supported the other angel, whose body was too weak to even hold itself up. He seemed so pale, his colour so washed out and Aziraphale hoped it was just the grey light of the clouds leaking down, but he knew better. 

Crawley sighed as the water reached his chest and he felt the chill of it spread through his body, finally starting to dampen the fever. 

“Thank you, Aziraphale.” 

“It’s my pleasure. To help you! Not too see you suffering!”

Crawley laughed softly at the angel, and Aziraphale smiled back, happy to see him already so much better. His piercing yellow eyes seemed to soften as they met his own, and he knew, in that very instant, that he was going to fall in love with him one day soon. 

He didn’t question whatever had changed between them at that moment. He had always been fond of Crawley, perhaps beyond what would be friendly territory, but now, out of nowhere, he could feel it like something was pulling him towards the other angel. Like there was something in him that just begged Aziraphale to make a move, almost dared him to. 

“I’m serious, Aziraphale. Thank you. I don’t know what happened.”

“Are you feeling a little better now?” Aziraphale couldn’t help himself, and lifted a hand to touch Crawleys cheek, who leaned into the cooling touch.

“A little. I still feel like I’m on fire, but it’s duller.”

“Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Keep me company?” He asked, knowing he was going to have to wait out whatever was wracking its way through his body.

“You shouldn’t have to ask, I would never leave you. Not like this.”

Crawley placed his own hand over the one on his cheek and smiled at the other angel, feeling their relationship shift ever so slightly. Nothing was said, and nothing was done, but something was different, and that was okay.

“But if I’m going to stay, please let me be helpful. Let me wash your wings for you? They’re filthy.”

“You’re asking to... groom me?”

“I suppose I am. But if you don't want-”

“No, it’s okay. I’d like that.” 

They shared another smile, and felt the relationship move once more. It was a tiny change, no more than a single blade of grass growing in an already luscious garden but they felt it as if they were the soil itself making room for another piece.

Crawley moved into the shallows and sat in the water, letting it hug around his hips and soothe his fiery skin as Aziraphale moved behind him. He knelt in the water and let his hands move up Crawley’s back, and into his wings that rained dust as his fingers parted their way through his feathers.

He worked his way through the white mass, dusting the fine particles out and washing away what he needed to. He straightened feathers and worked gently into the tensed muscles that held the heavy things up, starting from the strong shoulders of the angel and moving out towards the blackened tips. 

Crawley flinched away from Aziraphale when he hands finally made their way to the end of his first wing. 

“I’m sorry! Was I too rough?” The angel asked, worried beyond anything that he might’ve hurt the other.

“No, it’s okay. It just felt a little sore, it’s okay. You can keep going if you’d still like to.” He smiled reassuringly at the other, who took his wing softly in one hand and lowered it into the water, letting the lake do the work for him.

While he let the first wing soak, he worked his way through the second, letting it too lay in the water once it was mostly finished.

He moved back to the first and started kneading his fingers through the feathers, being far more gentle now then he had been before. Even though his touch was lighter than a butterfly’s kiss, he was aware that Crawley was in pain. At first it was just a little whine and a flinch, but soon his posture cracked and he hunched over himself like someone trying very hard to not move, his fever was spiking again and his wings ached like they were bruised from the joint down, and he thought his might faint from the combination of the two.

Aziraphale watched him the whole time, carefully tracking his movements, his breathes, the sound of it all. There was something built into him that made him want to protect the other angel, and see him healthy and well, and watching him like this dragged that desire out of him like his guts were being spilled. He watched carefully, not letting his eyes break from the steady rise and fall of Crawleys shoulders, moving with unnecessary breathes as he tried anything he could to soothe himself.

The angel stopped for a moment and waited for Crawley to calm. His posture didn’t straighten but his breathing eased off and he became comfortably quiet once more. When Aziraphale finally felt it was safe to return his attention to the wings, he was shocked to see the state of them. 

The skin was raw and bubbling, like he was covered in burns. His feathers that hasn’t fallen out into Aziraphales hands, were singed, the white vane all but gone, the shaft a fragile thing that threatened to turn to ash in his hand.

“What happened to you Crawley?” Fear and compassion danced in his voice,“Why didn’t you tell me you were hurt?”

“I’m not.

“Then what’s- _oh~_ ”

“‘ _Oh?’_ ”

“Oh Crawley, oh no. What happened to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“What did you say you were doing when you got sick, and your wings got dirty?”

“I was just doing work stuff. I was in The Garden, and gave Eve the apple.”

“Was that the right thing to do?”

“Yes? It was orders from the top.”

“From Her?” Aziraphale glanced to the heavens, suddenly more confused.

“From Her.” Crawley also turned his face to the sky.

“Then I don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand. Aziraphale, please tell me what's going on, your scaring me.”

Aziraphale didn’t answer.

“What don't you understand?!” Crawley snapped, fear getting the better of him.

“Why your wings are burning like your falling!” Aziraphale snapped back, tears filled his eyes.

“What?” Crawley turned to Aziraphale, and to see the mangeld feathers that clung lifelessly to his wing. 

Tears slipped over his eyes, and he looked to the angel before him, as if begging for answers, for help, for anything. He threw a glance to the heavens and back to Aziraphale and the wing that sat limply in his hands.

“But~ I was just doing what I was told? I can’t be falling. I did~ I did the right thing, didn’t I?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do I do?”

“I don’t know.”

Aziraphale looked helplessly at the falling angel before him, wishing he could do something, anything, to help. 

“You’ve got to believe me, I was just doing what I was told.” Crawley said, as if the angel before him was a jury who could stop him from falling. 

“I believe you, Crawley.” The angel replied, as he moved to sit in front of the other, who fell into their chest, crying and mumbling something about their innocence that Aziraphale couldn’t understand. 

His fever didn’t break for 3 days, and the angel didn’t leave his side the entire time. They stayed together, in that lake, holding each other as he slowly burned. Crawley spent a long time, wrapped around the angel and looking to the heavens, wanting to ask why, but knowing he needed to just trust in the ineffable plan. He knew, in his heart, this was all meant to happen, he just couldn’t figure out why it had to go this way.

After that, it still took almost a week for his wings to stop burning. The hellfire he was suffering, had consumed the entire lower third, destroying the feathers and licking all the way up into the bone. The wings screamed like they were broken, and stung with open blisters, but he considered himself lucky. He still had mostly white wings, and a halo, and even if he didn’t smell like an angel anymore, he knew God was still looking favourably upon him.


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> crawley is full of shame, that is all

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this chapter is really short but not much happens and i didnt wanna just bulk it out for no good reason

_ He scrambled through the store and into the backroom where he struggled to still his hands long enough to dial Crowley’s number. He breathed while the phone rang out, trying to do something, anything, to fill the excruciatingly long moments before the voicemail message played. He slammed the phone down, panicked, and ran back through the store, grabbing the damned envelope and running into the street to meet the taxi that was miraculously waiting for him. _

_ “Drive!” He ordered, as the location set itself into the drivers gps. “Please.” _

~~~

The heavy snake slithered into Aziraphale’s lap and pressed itself against his soft skin. 

“They don’t know anything.”

Crawley took form in the angels lap, straddling his hips.

“Do they suspect?”

“Some do, some think your a demon now, and your just not coping with it, some think your an angel still but your struggling with guilt over the apple. Nobody knows what's actually happening.”

“You’re sure?” Crawley asked as he leant into the angels chest.

“I’m sure.”

“Thank you for finding that out for me.”

“I would do anything to help you Crawley, this is nothing.” Aziraphale replied, smiling into the falling angels hair and wrapping his arms around their waist.

Crawley melted into his arms, basking in his heavenly warmth and nuzzling into his neck. He was already beginning to notice how much he missed the sweet heat of being an angel and how much he ached for it. So when Aziraphale would let him, he would sit with him for hours, taking in the warmth that he so wanted to live in again. He would hiss contentedly and pull himself against the angel.

But it would never last. Aziraphale still had a job to do, and a life to live, and Crawley would have to return, to retreat into The Garden again, hiding himself as a snake amongst the leaves. He didn't want the others to know what was happening to him. He didn't want the angels to hate him for something he had no control over, and he didn't want to be one with the demons. So he was in hiding. Hoping that maybe if he laid low, his white feathers would fill back in and he would be safe, but some part of him also wished that his wings would just die already and he could be done with it all.

He was ashamed of what had happened to him, what he had become, and disgusted with himself. Even as he sat, naked and contented, in Aziraphale’s lap, he kept his wings hidden. He couldn’t bare to show them, even if the other angel had been there to see them burning to the mess they were now, he refused to show them. 

Aziraphale never pushed to seem them despite how much he had once loved them, he understood why they were hidden. It saddened him to see the falling angels back so empty without them, his halo hidden and the soft glow of his skin dimmed down to nothing, but he knew he was lucky to see him at all. 

No one else, not angel nor demon, had laid eyes on him since that fateful day. He’d gone into isolation, slithered into Eden where he hid away from the prying eyes of those he felt so sure would judge him.

**Author's Note:**

> this is based off the idea that when an angel falls, the fall itself burns off their wings and smashes their halos when they land,, but because crowley is falling slowly he can feel it all peice by peice


End file.
